


The Rose of Yesterday

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: F/M, Romance, Surprises, Vignette, could be historical, could be modern au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 18:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11340765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: She'd had certain expectations.





	The Rose of Yesterday

“Where is everybody?” Mary whispered, peering into the darkened room. The curtains were drawn and the furniture, unprepossessingly sturdy in the full light of day, had assumed a certain fantastical quality, as if the table would run from the chairs in a game of cat and mouse, the salvaged wingchair loft itself into the air. It was the long hours on the wards that made her mind wander so, she thought; she’d always been of a practical bent, ever since she was a little girl and could not be convinced that any monsters lurked under the bed or in the shadowy woods that lapped her grandmother’s house. Now she wondered what was hidden in the night that filled the room and she had only Jed to ask, standing close enough beside her she could still make out the gleam in his eyes but not what it meant.

“Emma did say to come, I couldn’t have misunderstood,” Mary said, feeling the fatigue of the day, of the week of days and months of weeks, spreading through her. She put her hand out to catch at something to steady herself and found she grasped Jed’s forearm, bare to the elbow. She drew her hand back but not before they had both felt was it was to have her hand upon him and they had both heard the breath he took and the one she didn’t.

“I beg your pardon, it’s so dark, but I expect that’s as it should be,” she added. She found she wished they were there for a different purpose, one she should not even let herself think about, but the alteration in the room and the distance that usually kept them balanced had allowed the inchoate desire to become as defined as the line of Jed’s jaw, the weight of the braids at the nape of her neck.

“It should be?” he repeated. It could have been mockery but it wasn’t. He was curious and then knowing, both states that suited him as much as his sharp sarcasm, more than his occasional angry despair.

“It’s a surprise, a surprise party, but I guess we must be the first ones here. I hope Anne will like it, it’s so difficult to tell with her,” Mary explained. She felt Jed shifting next to her, more aware of his body in the darkness than she had ever been in the daylight. She smelled vetiver and candlewicks and not even the hint of blood—he had taken great care before he arrived to leave their work behind but she was not sure what that left between them.

He moved again, more confidently, and the sound of the struck match was audible then forgotten in the soft gold light of the tapers, that collected in the wineglasses on the table top and across his cheeks. It didn’t dispel the darkness but made it a companionable loveliness, a rich velvet to the wavering silk of the flame.

“Surprise. This is the surprise, Mary, this is the party, only you and me, ‘a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou,’” Jed replied, gesturing at the table that was set for them, simply but with everything she could want. She thought of Emma’s expression and how Henry had nodded, the roguish look in Samuel’s eyes and the way Matron’s pursed lips had not been able to disguise her smile. It had been a long time, past time some would say, since she had been so pleasantly, wonderfully astonished and she decided to tell him so, after they share the first cup.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and Jed's quote from the Rubaiyat. It has been very quiet in the Mercy Street fandom, so I thought I would let Mary speak for me with her question. And I think Anne would have complained bitterly about a surprise party, for the record, disappointed not to have an assignation with Byron or some other delicious conspiracy.


End file.
